With Mayor Rahm Emanuel signaling a commitment to high-performance bus rapid transit, the Chicago-based nonprofit Metropolitan Planning Council envisions a 95-mile BRT network that would carry an additional 71,000 daily riders.

With Chicago DOT Commissioner Gabe Klein at his side, Emanuel has already implemented the city’s first protected bike lanes as part of a plan to add 100 miles of bike lanes within four years, announced a $1 billion upgrade to the Chicago Transit Authority’s Red Line, and passed a $2 “congestion fee” on downtown parking garages that will go towards the creation of a CTA Green Line stop that serves McCormick Place – the nation’s largest convention center – and a downtown circulator bus route being billed as bus rapid transit.

The circulator could be an interesting harbinger of Emanuel’s bus policy and how far he will go with BRT. He has stated that BRT projects in Chicago will include “dedicated bus lanes, signal preemption, pre-paid boarding or on-board fare verification, multiple entry and exit points on the buses, limited stops, and at-grade boarding.” As it’s proposed now — with off-board fare payment and signal priority — the downtown circulator is a step in this direction. But it has yet to be seen whether Chicago will commit to high-performance BRT that sets a precedent for other American cities.

From Boston to Kansas City, U.S. cities tend to implement “BRT-lite,” where the actual benefits fall well short of expectations. Most of this disconnect is due to poor marketing by transit agencies trying to drum up excitement for projects that don’t meet true BRT standards. When the projects deliver less than promised, the reputation of BRT as an effective transit solution suffers.

Chicago has a chance to change this perception and serve as a model for cities nationwide by building a “gold-standard” BRT system, based on the rating system established by the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy. Budgets may be tight, but as Emanuel is showing with his funding plan for the downtown circulator, he’s not afraid to raise new revenues. And BRT’s lower construction costs relative to rail may make it the most realistic way for Chicago to move ahead on expanding its transit network.

Chicago's bike-share program was one TIGER III winner. Photo: Peopling Places

Chicago’s Blue Line and bike-share are splitting a $20 million award. The Blue Line work will eliminate slow zones on 3.6 miles of deteriorated track between downtown and O’Hare Airport. The money will also help jumpstart Chicago’s first large-scale bike sharing program, set to launch in the spring with 3,000 bikes.

TIGER isn’t exclusively for non-automobile focused projects, but its focus on innovation and regional significance has led to significant funding for transit and active transportation. For example, in addition to the $20 million for the projects in Chicago, Illinois also netted $13.85 million for a regional multi-modal transportation center adjacent to the new Amtrak high-speed rail station in Alton — as well as roadwork on Illinois Route 83.

Below is the best compilation we’ve seen so far, courtesy of Larry Ehl at Transportation Issues Daily.

We’ll bring you the full list when it’s published tomorrow.

In his campaign for mayor, Rahm Emanuel pledged to make Chicago a more bike-friendly city. And in office, he set his sights high, aiming to construct 100 miles of protected bike lanes in his first term.

His team wasted no time. Chicago DOT installed the city’s first protected bike lane on Kinzie Street before Emanuel’s first 30 days in office were over. Leading Emanuel’s DOT is former Washington, DC DOT Commissioner Gabe Klein, who clearly understands the connection between safe streets and the health of a city.

Last month Streetfilms traveled to Chicago to speak with the commissioner, ride on Kinzie Street, and bask in the city’s cycling excitement.

And one piece of local trivia. The Blommer Chocolate Store is right on the Kinzie Street protected bike lane and boy does it smell good. It figured prominently in my all-time favorite response to an interview question about biking.

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel wants to use a parking surtax downtown to pay for transit.

In last winter’s Chicago mayoral election, all the leading candidates made ambitious promises to increase funding for the city’s struggling transit agency. Now, with a proposed $2 “congestion fee” — really a downtown surcharge on the city’s parking tax — Emanuel plans to make drivers pay their fair share and use the proceeds to build a new rail station and the city’s first bus rapid transit line.

Under Emanuel’s plan, anyone parking in a downtown lot or garage would be required to pay an additional $2 on top of the existing parking tax. Drivers parking on the street or in residential garages wouldn’t be taxed, though according to the Chicago Tribune, some transportation advocates want to see the fee extended to downtown meters. According to the Sun-Times, the fee would raise roughly $28 million.

Emanuel and his transportation commissioner, Gabe Klein, want to use that revenue to complete two important transit projects. A new Green Line station at McCormick Place would allow for transit-oriented development in a fast-growing part of the city. A bus rapid transit system with dedicated, camera-enforced lanes, priority at traffic signals and off-board fare payment will be put into place for a new downtown circulator route.

An earlier version of the same plan was put forward by Mayor Richard M. Daley in 2008, with parking fees that would have gone up to $8 a day to fund an even wider BRT system, but opposition kept that plan from being enacted before a federal deadline passed.

For New Yorkers, the substance of Emanuel’s plan isn’t groundbreaking. The Chicago BRT line looks like it will have roughly the same features as New York City’s Select Bus Service, and New York already charges an 8 percent surtax on parking in Manhattan; with daily parking rates in Midtown averaging $41, that works out to about $3.25.

The politics of the proposal, however, look awfully foreign. The parking fee isn’t paying for the rail station or bus line on its own (the Green Line station alone will cost $50 million). Putting the two together is, as the Sun-Times reported, a political strategy to build support for Emanuel’s budget. In other words, “Rahmbo,” the hard-nosed operative who once plunged a steak knife into a table while shouting the names of his political enemies, thinks that pairing higher costs for drivers with improved transit is a political winner.

That’s not something you’re likely to see in New York City, despite a significantly lower rate of car ownership. Though a number of pols are ahead of the city when it comes to supporting full-featured BRT, many segments of the political class are more likely to complain that a bus lane eliminates highly subsidized on-street parking.

New protected bike lane on Chicago's Kinzie Street. Photo: Steven Can Plan

Okay. We can be envious now.

We noted a little while back that in setting out to make Chicago the nation’s most bike-friendly city, Rahm Emanuel was setting a tone not heard before from a big-city mayor. Indications are that cyclists aren’t tolerated in Emanuel’s Chicago, but wanted. Here’s an excerpt from an Emanuel statement on the city’s bike program web site:

Whether it’s navigating neighborhood streets with family and friends or catching a breeze along the lakefront on the way to work, more Chicagoans are discovering the benefits of biking. It’s a fast, fun, healthy, and affordable way to get around the city. In addition to providing a convenient alternative to driving, cycling reduces traffic congestion, promotes a cleaner environment, creates healthier communities, and improves the quality of life in our neighborhoods.

One of my top priorities as mayor is to create a bike network that allows every Chicagoan — from kids on their first ride to senior citizens on their way to the grocery store — to feel safe on our streets.

Memo to New York’s 2013 mayoral contenders: If you really support bicycling, this is how to do it with conviction and avoid coming across like a spineless coward.

Given the rapid innovations on city streets over the last four years, New York cyclists and pedestrians don’t yet have much cause to be envious of their counterparts in Chicago. Still, it’s hard not to feel a little green watching Mayor Rahm Emanuel express such unqualified support for an ambitious bike lane plan while elucidating the benefits of cycling as transportation. Less than three weeks after being sworn in, Emanuel joined his transportation commissioner, Gabe Klein, for the groundbreaking of the city’s first protected bike lane. What’s good for cyclists, says Emanuel in this news clip, is good for the city.

More than that, Emanuel has thrown down the gauntlet to other big-city leaders. By declaring his intent to make Chicago the most bike-friendly city in the nation, and walking the walk from the outset, he has effectively placed the onus on his peers to keep up. For an idea of how high Emanuel has set the bar, he’s talking 25 miles of protected bike lanes per year — more than New York City has installed to date.

While New York, Boston, Philadelphia, D.C., San Francisco and Los Angeles have all made strides recently, none that we can think of have been accompanied by this level of high-visibility commitment from their respective mayors. Emanuel campaigned on transportation reforms and is enacting livable streets policy right away, without apology. As if making a city’s streets safer and more accessible is the most obvious thing in the world.

Go Rahm go.

Gabe Klein helped build a bike-friendlier DC. Now's he's headed to the nation's third-largest city. Photo: Ready Set DC

Klein earned a reputation as a transportation star in the nation’s capital, helping put Washington on the national map as a leading bike- and transit-friendly city. During his tenure, he oversaw the creation of the country’s largest bike sharing system and built DC’s first separated bike lanes. Klein was also instrumental in helping move forward a streetcar system for the District, and under his leadership, the city pursued a wide-ranging parking reform effort [PDF].

The hiring decision signals Emanuel’s commitment to making Chicago a world-class biking city, one of his campaign promises. Emanuel has also made transit the centerpiece of his proposed transportation plan. According to the Washington Post, Klein turned down offers to run state DOTs before accepting Emanuel’s offer.

Klein was ousted in the political shuffle when Vincent Gray took over the Washington mayoralty from Adrian Fenty in the fall. His ascension to the top transportation spot in the nation’s third-largest city is unusual — DOT chiefs rarely leap from one city to another. Emanuel’s decision to hire a well-known DOT leader from another city speaks to the newfound emphasis on transportation policy in urban politics, and the star quality that some innovators in the field have attained.

In a statement on his blog, Klein said he was excited to help make Chicago a leader in progressive transportation planning:

This is an opportunity to continue public service in the 5th largest urban economy in the world, for a leader every bit as reform-minded and results oriented as former DC Mayor Adrian Fenty; to make Chicago an example nationally for innovation in transportation and public space, and most importantly, to positively impact quality of life for the 2.6 million residents of Chi-town.

According to Erik Weber at Greater Greater Washington, “Gabe Klein was the poster child for Fenty’s reliance on fast-acting, agile agencies that were willing to push new policies quickly into fruition, evaluate them on an interim basis, and, assuming successful outcomes, work quickly to push for broader implementation.”

Klein, whose résumé includes a stint as an executive at Zipcar, based many policies on the principle that people shouldn’t have to own their means of transportation. He advocated for car-sharing, bike-sharing and transit in order to reduce household transportation costs.

DC active transportation advocates already miss Klein. Chicago is luck to have him.

Hat tip to Alex Goldmark at Transportation Nation for the breaking news on the Klein hire.

One of the encouraging trends for American transit riders, in an otherwise bleak landscape of service cuts and fare hikes, is the growing number of agencies experimenting with ways to bring better information to their customers. Last summer Streetfilms explored how open transit data is helping to make riding the bus or the train more convenient in several cities.

Today’s follow-up looks at how better transit data is benefiting riders in Chicago. The Chicago Transit Authority’s “Bus Tracker” system is taking the mystery out of waiting for the bus, providing close-to-real-time information about when the next bus is coming. Riders can access this information online, on their mobile devices, and, in the Wicker Park-Bucktown district, in several cafes and shops.

When the cars move, kids play in the street and neighbors talk to each other. Image: First Christian Church

“I think there were about 300 or 400 people,” he said. “And really, I could count on one hand people I thought were people of color.”

Hernandez is the director of outreach and advocacy for the Active Transportation Alliance in Chicago. His own organization has a predominantly white, affluent membership, he says, but that’s changing. And a new study by the Centers for Disease Control highlights the urgent need for smart-growth and livability organizations to diversify and include the full range of people who care about these issues.

The CDC asked people how “street-scale urban design policies” (read: sidewalks, lighting) affect their level of physical activity. Overall, about 57 percent of adults said these neighborhood features were moderately or very important – but people of color placed far greater importance on those factors in the built environment than the white people surveyed.

In fact, 50.5 percent of black respondents and 40.6 percent of Hispanic respondents said neighborhood features were “very important” in determining their level of physical activity. Only 26.9 percent of the white people surveyed gave that answer. A quarter of the white respondents said it wasn’t important at all, while only 12 and 13 percent of Hispanics and blacks, respectively, said that.

Hernandez says that low-income communities and communities of color “get” issues of walkability, though they may feel alienated by the jargon livability advocates use. “People want to be able to walk and feel safe; they want their kids to be able to play outside,” he said. “The instant you start talking to people about what they like and don’t like about their block, they might say, ‘I hate that it’s hard for my kids to walk to school’, or ‘It’s hard for my kids to play outside.’ ‘We’re worried about how fast the cars are going.’”

He said Chicago residents often say their block party is their favorite event of the year. “You ask them, What happens at your block parties?” he said. “‘Well, the instant all the cars move, all the kids go out and play. It’s one of the only times we really talk to all our neighbors.’”

Laura Barrett, director of the Transportation Equity Network, laments the “segregation” between community organizations and some transportation advocacy groups. “Some people pursue walking and biking as a ‘white’ issue,” she said, “but low-income people who are stuck in these neighborhoods and have to walk and bike everywhere are incredibly impacted” by neighborhood features like high-traffic streets, abandoned buildings, and lack of green space.

According to the CDC’s survey, people of color are also more willing than white people to take civic action on neighborhood issues. It found that 58.8 percent of blacks said they were willing to write letters to elected officials about neighborhood livability issues, as well as 47.8 percent of Hispanics. Only 36.7 percent of whites were willing to write letters, though more of them were willing to pay more property taxes for better neighborhood design. Blacks were less willing to do that – but 6.3 percent of them (and 5.8 percent of Hispanics) were interested in running for office to support neighborhood improvements. Only 3.2 percent of whites were willing to go that far.

So if people of color are ready and willing to take action, why aren’t they prominent actors in most livability-focused organizations?

“We targeted five communities along Chicago’s west side,” Hernandez says. “And when we started this work, they were all pretty hesitant. At the time, we were the Chicagoland Bicycle Federation, so it sounded like some cycling club.”

But it wasn’t just the name change that helped build trust and partnership with these groups. Active Trans went to community members where they were – at PTA meetings and block parties – and engaged them on the issues that were important to them. They realized that violence, or the perception of violence, was at least as significant a barrier as traffic in encouraging community members to use parks and go outside. They partnered with them on issues like housing access and jobs. And they linked all of these issues back to changes in the built environment that would improve their quality of life. “Now we have African-American and Latino community-based organizations going to their councilmen and alderman and asking for bicycle and pedestrian improvements,” says Hernandez.

The CDC study is an interesting document, but more than that, it’s a wake-up call for livability advocates who need to do a better job of reaching out to people of color.

Though U.S. cities have reconsidered their parking privatization plans in the wake of Chicago's bum deal, NYC Deputy Mayor Stephen Goldsmith has defended it. Image: AP

When Chicago Mayor Richard Daley announced that he was striking a deal to privatize his city’s 36,000 parking meters, it was a golden opportunity for transportation reform. If all went well, the deal could have cleared a political path for higher peak-hour meter rates, curbing double-parking and congestion-causing cruising.

But Chicago managed to completely bungle that opportunity, inking a contract that gave away billions of dollars in revenue to Morgan Stanley. That agreement, which was worked out behind closed doors and then rushed through the approval process, earned the city an up front payment of $1.15 billion while Morgan Stanley will earn ten times that amount, according to Bloomberg News. The city of Chicago could have earned nearly a billion more dollars up front had it just raised meter rates itself and bonded out the revenue, according to Chicago’s inspector general.

The details of the contract have also come back to haunt Chicago. The city can’t leave the contract for 75 years, and as the Urbanophile’s Aaron Renn has noted, that means any attempt by the city to re-purpose curb space for public use, bus or bike lanes, can’t proceed without Morgan Stanley’s permission.

Chicago’s bum deal seems to be leading many U.S. cities to revisit or even cancel their plans to privatize parking. Bloomberg News reports:

Chicago’s agreement for a Morgan Stanley partnership to run its parking meters for 75 years, expected to cost drivers $11.6 billion, has Indianapolis, Pittsburgh and Los Angeles rethinking their own deals.

Indianapolis, whose city council plans to vote tonight on a proposal with Xerox Co.’s Affiliated Computer Services, would rather take less money up front in favor of more total fees in its 50-year transaction. It also wants something Chicago didn’t get: exit clauses that let the city end the lease.

Those three cities are each looking to learn from Chicago in different ways. Indianapolis, as noted above, is leaving itself room to escape the contract and forgoing a big one-time payoff in favor of spreading out the revenue it will receive. Los Angeles, which is privatizing off-street lots, is rejecting a provision that would relinquish city control over rate hikes.

In Pittsburgh, the City Council has reacted even more strongly. They voted down a plan to lease their meters to JPMorgan, though Mayor Luke Ravenstahl is still pushing the plan, according to Bloomberg.

New Yorkers should keep a close eye on parking privatization plans in all of these cities. Public-private partnerships of this sort are gaining in popularity nationwide, and perhaps no figure in the country is more closely associated with the idea than our new deputy mayor, Stephen Goldsmith, who made his name by privatizing many of Indianapolis’s services when he served as mayor there.

Renn distinguishes Goldsmith’s deals from Chicago-style meter privatization by noting that he farmed out public services through competitive bids that regularly came up for renewal — a far cry from Chicago’s 75-year, one-shot “jackpot.” However, unlike civic leaders in Indy, Pittsburgh and L.A., Goldsmith has remained a believer in Chicago’s privatization.

In an article for Governing magazine this January, Goldsmith argued that the fundamentals of the Chicago deal were sound, even if a few details could have been worked out more smoothly. One red flag: The first “mistake” Goldsmith highlighted was a parking rate hike that Chicago enacted around the same time as the privatization. That may suggest that Goldsmith underestimates the potential of these parking deals for transportation reform while overstating their fiscal prudence.

Graphic: New York Times/Chicago News Cooperative.

Streetsblog has been following the Chicago parking privatization closely because it is the poster child for all that can go wrong with Public Private Partnerships, or PPPs. The basic idea behind a PPP is that the government leases public transportation infrastructure -- say a bridge, highway, airport, or parking meters -- that can generate user fees. In exchange for the fees, a private investor pays the government a large upfront fee or assumes the cost of improving the infrastructure. PPPs are popular in Europe, especially at airports.

Sustainable transportation advocates should care about PPPs for a number of reasons. First, politicians and bureaucrats are captivated by the fantasy that PPPs are the ultimate free lunch, generating billions in transportation investment at no cost to the taxpayer. President Obama's euphemism for PPPs is "creative financing." Here in New York, state officials have repeatedly presented a PPP as the way to raise billions for the astronomical cost of replacing the Tappan Zee Bridge. This is dangerous thinking. PPPs do inflict a cost, and it's a big one. Huge amounts of revenue that could be directed to public transit, or crucial road and bridge repair, are instead going to Wall Street.

The second concern is that PPPs allow public officials to skew the public planning and review process and put private profit before public benefit. A private investor has tremendous leverage over what gets built if they are the government's main financing option. The investor's goal is to make money, not to produce the greatest public benefit over many decades.

Despite the latest revelation, Chicago is only beginning to recognize the inherent problems with privatizations. According to the Times, Alderman Scott Waguespack introduced a measure that would require an "independent third-party valuation" of major asset lease proposals before any future privatization deal is completed. The legislation would require "a comparison of public retention and private leasing over the life cycle of the agreement." This could serve as an important safeguard, but so far, the measure only has 12 co-sponsors among the council's 49 other members.

Traffic Enforcement for Bicyclist Safety from Chicago Bicycle Program on Vimeo.

This amazing video, via Chicago Bicycle Advocate, was produced for the Chicago Police Department to educate drivers, cyclists and officers on traffic laws pertaining to bikes.

Considering the consistent disregard and hostility projected by New York's Finest, that such videos exist (San Francisco has one too) is remarkable enough. But here, interspersed with horror stories from civilian cyclists, we have actual police officers -- close to a dozen are listed in the credits -- instructing their colleagues not just to enforce the law, but to treat bike riders with respect as rightful users of the road.

After a primer on how to fill out cyclist-involved crash reports, for example, the narrating officer gives advice on cyclist interviews. Given that a cyclist may be suffering from shock after a crash, he says: "You may need to follow up the next day, or talk with them after a trip to the emergency room." Imagine.

Does anyone know of other U.S. cities with similar police training materials? Will New Yorkers ever see the day when an NYPD officer publicly says something like, "The public counts on us to keep the roads safe, and to protect those who are at the greatest risk"?

Photo: Best Recession Ever

All in all, it wasn't the money for nothing bargain the City Council seemed to think it was back in December when Morgan Stanley handed over a check for $1.157 billion. This manna from Wall Street plugged the city's gaping budget hole and allowed the council to avoid painful tax hikes and service cuts. It also enticed lawmakers in Los Angeles and Philadelphia, where officials were considering their own parking privatization deals.

In return for the upfront cash, Chicago leased its 36,000 parking meters for the next 75 years to the Morgan-led consortium, and granted it the authority to double and triple meter rates. By 2013 downtown meters are slated to double to $6 per hour; neighborhood meter rates are to double to $2 per hour.

The deal was pushed hard by Mayor Richard Daley. The core of his privatization argument was that Chicago lacked the political will to raise meter rates and that desperate fiscal times demanded unlocking the value of public parking. He noted that city meters were only generating about $20 million a year, and because of neighborhood resistance, meter prices hadn't gone up in 20 years. His conclusion was that Chicago had to outsource the political will to raise meter rates.

However, the inspector general's report concludes that, "If Chicago were to keep control of the parking-meter system and operate it under the same terms as the private company, the system would be worth approximately $2.13 billion (in present dollars)," or $974 million more than the city received. Ironically, another cost of Chicago parking privatization was that it quashed a number of neighborhood-supported parking improvement districts, in which higher meter fees were to be invested in local pedestrian, bicycle and transit improvements.

While public-private partnerships can be appealing because they require motorists to pay more of the actual cost of driving, are these deals really the only way to overcome political resistance to higher motoring fees?

Continuing the Streetfilms tour of envy-inspiring bike parking garages, Clarence Eckerson files this report from the McDonald's Cycling Center in Chicago's Millennium Park, operated by Bike and Roll on behalf of the city. Says Clarence:

It's enough to make bike commuters in many cities drool. The center boasts state-of-the-art showering facilities, secure bicycle parking for 300, a repair station, towel service, is temperature-controlled, and features the constant presence of the Chicago Lakefront Police bike patrol, which shares the facility and maintains its bikes on site. The station is extremely popular, with 500 members at a time and a waiting list of eager riders ready to join. But even if you aren't a member you can still take advantage of the free bike parking, and mechanics are on duty to repair anyone's bikes seven days a week.

Will Chicago get a second chance at federal funds for better bus service? Photo: celikins/Flickr

Back in April, the feds withdrew a $354 million grant to New York City because Albany failed to pass congestion pricing. Chicago would have received $153 million of that for BRT pilot routes, but as Crain's reports, the city failed to hold up its end of the bargain:

The administration this week quietly pulled back a pending ordinance that would have hiked fees and taxes for off-street parking in garages and on surface lots downtown by as much as $8 a day. The measure was supposed to be the stick for a big carrot: a $153-million federal grant announced last spring to begin a pilot express transportation system known as bus rapid transit.

But the measure, which arrived in the wake of large hikes in parking-meter fees, drew strong opposition from business groups. And even if the mayor had put down the opposition, the ordinance was not approved by the Dec. 31 deadline mandated by the U.S. Department of Transportation.

With only a few days left in the Bush era, U.S. DOT Secretary Mary Peters, who initiated the Urban Partnership Agreement to spur initiatives like this, has indicated that she won't cut Chicago any slack. Which means this story could turn into an early test for incoming secretary Ray LaHood. Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley still hopes to get the new parking policy through City Council, and if LaHood continues the urban partnership program, the city may not lose the federal funding after all.

Under the agreement with Morgan Stanley Infrastructure, meter rates will rise substantially and some meters will operate overnight and on Sundays. Chicago currently nets $20 million a year from its meters, and revenue should triple or quadruple given planned meter rates. The deal is by far the largest of its kind in the US and continues Chicago Mayor Richard Daley's privatization of city transportation infrastructure, including Midway Airport and the elevated Chicago Skyway.

The agreement is interesting from a transportation reform perspective because the higher meter rates, applied through modern meters, will help sharply reduce double-parking and cruising traffic. This means less air pollution, less time wasted in traffic, and more potential street space for sidewalk extensions, bikes and buses. 

Despite these benefits, Chicago's privatized road to parking reform has serious flaws. The concession will cost future taxpayers several hundred million to even a billion dollars in foregone parking revenue -- a lot to pay to outsource the political will to raise rates. Additionally, none of the upfront payment will be dedicated to transportation improvements. The bulk of the money will go to balancing the budget and fiscal "stabilization" with $100 million earmarked for social programs.

Chicago will soon have the highest meter rates in the United States. The 8,100 meters in the Loop Central Business District will rise 50 cents to $3.50/hour next month and $6.50 by 2013. Neighborhood rates will quadruple to $1 an hour next year and reach $2 by 2013. (San Francisco's SFpark is also raising rates, though it's not clear how fast and by how much.)

Daley’s press press release further details how meter rates will be set:

• The City will implement graduated meter rate increases over a period of five years that will bring rates closer to market level. After that, any increases will be subject to the approval of the city council and are expected to be at the rate of inflation.
• These increases will be the first in more than 20 years for more than 25,000 of the 36,000 meters.
• By the middle of 2011, all meters must have both cash and cashless payment options.The City Council retains the right to revise the meter increases, change the number of meters or the hours of operation. But to the extent the City takes action that negatively impacts meter revenue, it will be obligated to make the private operator whole.

Despite its problems, the Chicago deal should send a loud message to New York, and other big US cities, that they are leaving huge sums of potential public revenue untapped, and contributing to traffic congestion and air pollution by leaving meter rates too low.

Photo: itsbetteronamac/Flickr

Streetfilms contributor Nicholas Whitaker files this report from Chicago, which put on a pair of major car-free events last month called Sunday Parkways. Recently Streetfilms has also covered car-free events in New York, Portland and San Francisco, and like the Summer Streets video, this one features a guest turn from Gil Peñalosa, one of the masterminds behind Bogotá's inspirational Ciclovía.

The people over at CTA Tattler ("seen and heard on the Chicago Transit Authority"), as part of their tireless efforts to monitor the movements of the Chicago Transit Authority, have turned to the microblogging tool Twitter and created a Twitter feed with the user name ctatweet. It's a way for people using the city's transit system to post updates about train delays and breakdowns from their cell phones or PDAs.

CTA Tattler's Kevin O'Neil is combining information from the Twitter stream with another system of online updates he and his brother Dan set up a couple of years ago at a page called CTA Tweet.

O'Neil talked to the Columbia Chronicle about the Twitter initiative:

“The idea is to get this information to the masses,” Kevin O’Neil said. “Twitter is just another way to do that.”

Kevin O’Neil said he often hears from his blog’s readers about how the CTA needs to improve communication to its commuters. This program makes the train schedule information and updates on delays available for that rider earnestly waiting in the cold for 40 minutes on an elevated train platform, he said.

Twitter is being used increasingly by municipal entities as one tool for gathering fast-developing information and keeping citizens informed in emergencies. This week, a Twitter feed is part of the LAFD's highly coordinated online response to wildfires in the San Fernando Valley and elsewhere.

When we looked around for a NYC transit twitter feed, we were surprised to find one that looks pretty official called MTA_Updates. A call to Aaron Donovan at the MTA's press office, however, revealed that the MTA has nothing to do with the feed and doesn't know who is responsible for it (they're looking into it).

Donovan said that the MTA doesn't see a service with relatively few users, such as Twitter, as a good option for disseminating information. Instead, he said, the New York transit authority will soon be allowing riders to sign up for text and e-mail updates about unscheduled and scheduled service outages.

In New York, it was the 2006 release of Growth or Gridlock, which pegged the annual price of traffic at $13 billion, that set off a public debate about congestion pricing that continues to this day. In London, the business group London First issued a similar report spurring Mayor Ken Livingstone to adopt a congestion charge. Now Chicago's Metropolitan Planning Council has released "Moving at the Speed of Congestion" [PDF], which estimates that excess traffic costs the region $7.3 billion per year.

Chicago is already in the process of implementing performance parking and launching its first BRT routes (using federal funds New York would have received had Albany approved congestion pricing). The new report indicates that local policy makers will be urged to go further, perhaps in the direction of congestion pricing, though not necessarily a London-style cordon.

"The report shows that if we do look at pricing it has to be with a regional focus, not just in the city," says Mandy Burrell of the MPC. "There needs to be a menu of solutions that work collectively across the region."

"Moving at the Speed of Congestion" eschews specific proposals, but the authors do note that an effective solution to the region's congestion problems won't be limited to tolling highways:

Congestion mitigation strategies that focus solely on increasing expressway speeds, perhaps by increasing expressway prices, could inadvertently divert traffic to arterials. Instead, a coordinated strategy to increase travelers' transportation options, while reducing traffic levels and increasing speeds on both expressways and arterials, will be necessary.

What sort of traffic mitigation ideas might surface following the release of the report? For now, the MPC is focused on improving Illinois's capital plan, an omnibus spending package that has not been renewed since 2004. The state legislature is currently debating a new plan, including funding for Chicago's bevy of local and regional transportation agencies.

Historically, the capital plan has diverted big chunks of money to a mishmash of member items and pork. The result? Two thousand miles of new lanes have been added to the region's highways and arterial roads over the last 20 years, while average rush-hour commute times have doubled.

The MPC wants future spending to be based on set criteria, like curbing the amount of money people have to spend at the pump, and the length of time they spend sitting in traffic. "We should be prioritizing transportation projects that reduce commutes and connect job centers," says Burrell. "Too often the projects that end up in the plan aren't the ones that reduce congestion, because the plan doesn't have stated goals."

The report suggests that one such goal should be to provide Chicagoans with more transportation options:

While some would say congestion is the result of people choosing to drive, it is equally accurate to view congestion as the result of a lack of choice. A prime example is a mass transit network that more efficiently moves people to and from home, work, stores, schools, and other transportation hubs to give people more choice in how to get around.

Photo: Metropolitan Planning Council

Whether privatization is the right way to unlock New York City's parking riches is debatable. What's not in question is that curbside parking in New York and most U.S. cities is grossly underpriced and could potentially be a crucial source of revenue for much needed transportation improvements. Chicago has chosen to outsource the political will to raise meter prices. Cities with the gumption to raise their own meter prices will keep much more of the revenue. That said, at least Chicago is doing something about its parking dysfunction, and will get the very real benefits of reduced cruising traffic and double parking.

The Bond Buyer reports that Chicago expects to raise more than a billion dollars upfront when it awards a minimum 50-year concession to operate its curbside parking meter system. Ten corporate consortiums are bidding for the contract, which is expected to go before the City Council in the fall. According to Transportation Alternatives' recent report Pricing the Curb [PDF], Chicago will require vendors to use state-of-the-art parking meters that monitor parking space availability and adjust rates to ensure an open space on every block. Chicago will raise meter rates as part of the deal.

Chicago's 36,000 parking meters generated $23 million in 2007. New York City's 75,900 meters produced $114 million. (New York anticipates $120 million in meter revenue in 2008.)

Chicago leads the U.S. in privatization deals or "public-private partnerships." It leased the Chicago Skyway toll-way in a 99-year deal with a multinational consortium in 2005 for $1.82 billion. It followed up that deal with another 99-year lease of four downtown parking garages to a private operator for $563 million in 2006.

Mayor Daley says Chicago will use lump sums from the privatization deals to create a reserve fund which will generate interest for long-term infrastructure investments and to pay down debt and pension obligations. But some Chicago City Council members have expressed concern about the proposed parking privatization and higher meter rates. "We saw that in the Skyway. Fees went up. If we lose control of that, the citizens have nobody to complain to. They're not going to listen to John Q. Citizen," Transportation Committee chairman Tom Allen (38th) told the Sun Times.

Photo: jeanphony/Flickr